Frank Fitts and the Catholic Left

I must admit, one reason I left Patheos was so that I could keep better track of Mark Shea.  When I came on board Patheos, our editor asked me to leave Mark alone and cease and desist arguments with him.  I more or less behaved myself, usually confining any references to Mark to the praise and 'well done' category.

That didn't stop Mark, however, from visiting my blog a few times and throwing out his usual preemptive accusations, and then leaving.  Since Mark banned me from his own sites, I couldn't respond, and he never returned to dialogue with me.

That became frustrating to be sure.  I tried to behave on my part, and yet felt I was coming out on the short end.  Therefore one of many reasons to leave Patheos was so I could speak more openly about Mark's descent into the deepest levels of the modern Left.

This post is a grand example.  First of all, there is nothing wrong with the substance of what Mark says about Church teaching.  The Church condemns racism.  If you only oppose immigration because you are a racist, then that is bad.  Likewise, our salvation does not rest in blood or soil or nation.  The Church is not America, nor is it Western Civilization.

But that's not the problem. First, Mark used a rather poor example to illustrate the opposing side of the debate.  Assuming this all came to Mark as he indicates - and knowing how Mark falsely accused me of saying things about him, I must wonder - it is obviously a poorly written, poorly thought out piece.  There are other, better pieces explaining the problems with open borders and post-national Christianity.  The biggest problem is that whatever negative results occur, it won't be us who pay the price.  It will be future generations.  A sort of martyrdom by proxy: By the degree to which future generations pay for our opinions have we declared our righteousness.

Mark doesn't address those.  He takes something written by what could pass as a high school Facebook rant.  And he uses it to subtly suggest this is par for the course for those who don't agree with the Church's current approach to the subject.

He then does the really, super duper bad thing.  He ascribes only the most vile and evil motives to those who oppose open border immigration.  And then, to add salt to the wound, he takes it to the next level:

"…is (like all these Alt Right guys) obsessed with his sperm.  That’s why he bizarrely speaks of “cuckolds” as he insults celibate “Catholic leaders”.  It’s all about the weird fear these guys have that darkskins will inseminate “their” white women.  The sexual insecurity of these wretched bully boys just leaps off the page every time they write."

It's a classic tactic of fanatical devotion to a cause.  You are either 100% for us, or you are more than 100% wicked and evil in ways you probably can't guess.  This is the type of stuff that peps the rally and can actually silence opposition.  After all, if it becomes commonly understood that anyone who opposes our open borders positions on immigration is just obsessed with darkies putting their sperm into our women, how gross and creepy is that?  Who wants to be associated with that type of thinking?  That's like pedophilia meets racism.

It reminds me of the 80s, when that effective weapon was used against opponents of homosexual normality.  Member that?  What did they say?  They said if a guy had issues with homosexuality, it's likely because he was really a closet homosexual.  Secretly he sexually fantasized about having hot, steamy, sweating sex with this buff neighbor next door.  He was really Frank Fitts, the Left's mental picture of everyone who has blasphemed the true, saving gospel of liberalism. Complete with Nazi memorabilia and gun obsessions.

That's what Mark has done.  He has turned any and all opposition to the Church's thinly veiled support for open borders into Frank Fitts.  It is a devastatingly effective ploy.  It takes it to the deepest levels of shutting down debate because, if you resist, you're a Nazi.  And not just Nazi, but a creepy, sperm obsessed sex type Nazi whose mind is ever in the dirtiest levels of social thinking when it's not being racist.   Using that tactic is the last stage of conformity to the Left, where debate is over, and failure to conform brands you guilty of all sins, since you have dared to question even one part of the progressive platform.